


When the Clouds Touch the Earth

by JeromeSankara



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Cloak of Levitation (Marvel), Discord: IronStrange Haven, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fear, M/M, Nebraskan Stephen, OPE - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark Cuddles, Tornadoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 22:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20199541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeromeSankara/pseuds/JeromeSankara
Summary: Stephen has never been good with storms. When the clouds cluster the sky, he is constantly on edge. Tony always thought it was a fear of storms. He's right, but Tony doesn't know how right he is.





	When the Clouds Touch the Earth

Thunder shook Tony awake, the rumble still echoing throughout the Sanctum. Priceless relics clattered on their platforms, always threatening to spill at its earliest convenience. The room was dark, save for the occasional flash of lightning that gave that one spark of illumination.

He blinked slowly against the flashes, taking in the expansive room. If there was one word he could describe Stephen's room, it had to be cluttered. Ancient books still covered in dust, tunics draped across furniture older than both of them, relics hanging on the wall or in standing glass cases… But of all the things that were shoved into the bedroom, there was one noticeable missing piece.

Stephen.

The space beside him on the expansive bed was empty, the sheets pulled back and abandoned. Running his hand across the silk sheets, Tony found them dry and cold. Was it not a nightmare? How long has Stephen been away? He stared at the folds and shadows of the sheets until another crack of lightning illuminated the room again and a soft red caught his eye.

The Cloak was standing/floating/whatever the Cloak does beside the open door of the bedroom. While Tony may not have spent many nights in the Sanctum, because the damn thing was confusing as all hell even with simple trips to the bathroom, he knew that the Cloak had its own resting place in the connecting room. It didn’t come into the bedroom unless Stephen called upon it or there was something amiss.

“Shit, you’re pulling a Lassie on me,” Tony grunted, his sluggish body trying its best to fight against moving. But the Cloak certainly wasn’t going to help him, so with a bit of dragging across Stephen’s stupidly huge bed, Tony finally worked up to his feet. His body ached in far too many places to be considered legal, but he would grin and bear it the best he could. He didn’t wake up from a horrific nightmare or from a random pain, just from thunder. All he could hope was that Stephen was the same way.

Tony threw on a robe, (or maybe it was a tunic, it was dark afterall) and rubbed at his face. “What’s up, blankie?” he grumbled, staring at it through slitted eyes. It didn’t answer, because it’s a fucking cloak how could it, and just turned away. It drifted out the doorway and trailed down the hall, only pausing to make sure Tony was following.

The only illumination came from the flashes of lightning and the soft glow of the arc reactor, and it felt like every few steps was plagued by almost running into some glass cabinet, but after a few turns, Tony got a slight grasp on where they were going. His suspicions were confirmed when the Cloak stopped at a set of closed double doors, then drifted back. Whatever laid on the other side was not to involve the relic. That had to be a good sign, right?

“Thanks,” he muttered reluctantly, knowing that he would have been hopelessly lost without the guide, then pressed his hand to the door. With a louder than needed to be groan, the door creaked open just enough to let Tony look inside.

The Sanctum Window of Worlds was illuminated by the near constant lightning, letting the light pour through the open floor. Bathed in the flashing light was a single form, sitting on the platform beneath. Tony let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Stephen at least was in the Sanctum, he hadn’t gone off on some ridiculous wizardly adventure while Tony had slept. Since it was pointless to knock, Stephen would have been aware of his presence before he opened the door, Tony let the heavy door close behind him.

The form didn’t move, head upright and staring. There was a soft green glow when the lightning died off, just enough to shape his silhouette. At first, Tony wondered if Stephen was just meditating. He was unnaturally still, as if he had turned to stone. But as he made his way across the floor, Tony almost stopped when he finally saw Stephen’s face.

The normally calm, pale blue eyes were glistening with the uncomfortable green of magic, blank to the world around him. They stared blindly out the window, not even a twitch coming through his body. The Eye of Agamotto around his neck was open and consumed by the same color. Tendrils were slow to drift around Stephen’s form, twining around his arms with unfamiliar runes and shapes. Tony swallowed, trying to hold back the shivers. Stephen had told him plenty of times that the Eye wasn’t a toy. Using the Eye of Agamotto was dangerous, and what the sorcerer saw were things he never spoke aloud.

Disturbing Stephen while deep in whatever trance he had placed himself into would certainly do more harm than good, so Tony instead settled down to sit next to Stephen. He took a moment to take inventory over the rest of Stephen’s body. The tunic was messy and pulled on in haste, pooling down his arms and into his lap in some places. In the light of the Eye, Tony could see the glisten of sweat gathering on Stephen’s forehead, trailing down bead by bead. His hands were still trembling as they rested on his legs, fingers in a fixed position of concentration. Judging by their tremble, Stephen had been in this position for quite a while.

Sitting not far from Stephen’s reach was a mug, and Tony’s stomach dropped when he saw that it was coffee. Stephen didn’t like coffee, not straight black coffee. He only drank when he knew he needed to stay awake, to keep himself from closing his eyes and seeing whatever it was he was staying away from. Maybe he had been wrong about it not being a nightmare. It had long since gone cold, now only giving off the feign comfort in the aroma.

Tony waited, splitting his attention between Stephen’s unnaturally still body and the rain rolling down the window. With the tilt of the roof, they were almost directly beneath the window like a skylight. Lightning cracked through the sky in jagged bolts, with barely seconds between each clap of thunder. The wind would roar as it ran past the Sanctum, howling out. It was a fierce storm even by New York’s standards, but if anything, Tony couldn’t find himself to be bothered. Storms were strangely enough one of the more soothing things to him. Mother nature in her ferocity, feeding the earth with her tears and all that sappy shit. It made humanity feel small, the way it honestly should be. Nothing could fight against her storms.

It was with one particular crack of lightning that Stephen jerked beside him, sucking in a breath so deep that it sounded like it rasped against every rib to struggle its way in. His body shuddered, losing that composure that had him so motionless and leaving him struggling for control. The green snapped away just as quick, sucked back into the closing Eye. Stephen’s shuddering gasp turned into coughs, ones that wracked his body with no mercy.

Tony’s immediate instinct was to grab him, to pull him in close and squeeze away whatever had taken hold of him, but he managed to catch himself. Stephen wasn’t good with touch and even worse with noise. Especially when he was in… whatever state this was right now. Instead, he had to stay silent, he had to wait, and every second that ticked past was a blow to his chest.

Stephen had curled in on himself, arms wrapping around his torso and his fingers knotting into the tunic’s loose fabric. His pale eyes were stretched wide, still sightless to the rest of the world, but with each drag of breath, a little more of Stephen came with it. Recognition flickered into his eyes, and his muscles unclenched one by one. Yet his eyes stared to the flashing sky, the pouring rain and the unending bolts of lightning.

It was only once Stephen’s breaths began to even out again that Tony dared to speak. “Are you back?” he asked, low and quiet. Stephen didn’t move, and at first he wondered if Stephen just didn’t hear him.

“I’m… here,” Stephen finally rasped back after a few bloated seconds. He still did not turn his head, only stared to the skies with eyes rapidly turning blank again.

Taking that as his cue, Tony shuffled closer, keeping just an inch of distance between their bodies. He could practically feel Stephen’s shivers through the space. His mind was already clicking away with that checklist each followed whenever there was just something… off.

Stephen wasn’t physically injured. Drained, perhaps, but nothing worse. He was talking, and he was lucid. Well, lucid enough. He was responsive, but there was something else. The way his eyes would not move away, barely blink even as lightning blinded the room, there was something he was seeing that Tony simply couldn’t.

“Do you want to talk?”

There was a small twitch to Stephen’s hands. They pried off his tunic and Stephen buried them back into his lap like a dirty secret. When Tony wasn’t given an answer, he was instead given a choice. Stay and wait, or leave and let Stephen wander through whatever state he was in on his own. The decision was easy, and Tony laid himself onto the floor in any attempt to get more comfortable. He knew from experience, from both ways, that this may take a while.

They stared through the window in silence, rain running down the grooves of the glass and the lightening continued to strike with no mercy. With every wave of thunder, Tony watched Stephen’s body stiffen back up, locking him in place. It didn’t take Tony being a genius to gain some idea of why Stephen was acting this way. Just… not the  _ reason.  _

“Had to… make sure.”

Tony didn’t want to insult Stephen by prompting him with the obvious questions, so he waited some more. He waited and they watched, they felt the rattling thunder, and they listened to the howling wind. They waited so long that Tony wondered if Stephen had gone back into his trance, but when the time stretched longer between the strikes of lightning, he saw Stephen’s body began to unclench once more. They waited a minute after the last bolt before Stephen finally spoke again.

“Make sure that back home was safe.”

Tony’s brow furrowed. That didn’t make much sense. This Sanctum, for the most part,  _ was _ Stephen’s home. And it wasn’t like the penthouse was in any danger by the storm, either. Where else could he possibly…

“Nebraska?”

It was so subtle, but Stephen nodded. His eyes never strayed away from the window. “Watch the color of the clouds.” Stephen licked his lips, a small shiver running through his body again. “Green’s the warning.”

Taking his words at face value was almost meaningless. Clouds don’t just turn green. They turn dark, yes, but green?

“Rain makes the crops grow big and tall, but don't ignore the siren's call. Hide from the windows, get down to the cellar, hide in the shelter from the weather. Green clouds means danger's on its way, so you better get down and stay. Don't come out until the siren goes away."

The words were said so bluntly, so bland and emotionless that it was like Stephen was reading off a script. Then Tony realized that the words may as well have been printed to the inside of his eyelids.

“Six different times, one’s been just a few miles away. We would see them from the window. We’d stay down in the cellar for hours. Just waiting. We stopped being afraid. We just waited for the day.”

There was more silence, and for just a moment, Tony wished that there would be a rumble of thunder to break it. Stephen never turned to look back at him. He said the words to empty air, like they had been rotating within his mind for years. Rotating like the clouds that haunted him.

"You don't need to be afraid anymore, babe. They don't come up here."

"I'm not-"

Stephen's jaw clicked shut, clenching down so hard that Tony could see the strain in the low light. He pulled in a breath through his teeth, then shook himself. It was only then that Stephen dropped his eyes from the windows.

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, rubbing into them in any attempt to scrub away the memories. "I grew up knowing that every storm had the chance to turn deadly. I've seen towns wiped clean off the earth. It's not about being  _ scared." _

Another quick breath, his hands starting to shake where they were pressed to his face. "I can control so much of this world, of this dimension and the next. But…"

Nothing Stephen could do would take away that fear. Tony pulled himself up into a sitting position, and he carefully ran his fingers up Stephen's arms. When his partner didn't pull away, he took his wrists in his hands and tugged them from Stephen's face. "What do you need?" Tony murmured, letting his fingers start the slow massage into Stephen's palms.

Stephen's eyes fluttered open, those mystical blues still so foggy and unsure. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair to Stephen to have to feel this way over a storm. But Tony knew that there would not be a simple trick to wish away his worries.

Stephen swallowed, so hard that Tony could hear his throat click. "I need the storm to pass," Stephen rasped, and his eyes were already pulled back to the window. The words died, and in seconds, Tony had lost him again to the howling wind and distant rumbles.

As if by cue, the door creaked open behind them and Tony glanced back to their red visitor. The Cloak was only partially in the room, its collar low and sheepish as if it expected to be turned away at any moment.

"C'mon, blankie," Tony whispered, jerking his head to the motionless sorcerer. "Need a little help tonight."

There was no need for further prompting, not as the Cloak zipped across the room and to Stephen's side. While it at first draped itself over Stephen's body and wrapped tight, it soon lifted one corner of the fabric, waving Tony closer.

Tony took his time as he crept closer, watching for any discomfort from his partner, but he was soon nestled into Stephen's side. The Cloak tucked the edges around their bodies, holding them together.

There they stayed as the storm raged on, waiting for Stephen to come back once the clouds cleared, side by side. Grounding Stephen back to a world that wouldn't be swept away by howling wind and churning clouds.

**Author's Note:**

> As a Nebraskan myself, I've lived through several tornadoes and I have a constant fear that every storm will bring the next tornado that will destroy my home, my life, and my family. It's okay to be afraid of storms, even when you don't think it's rational.


End file.
